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Lorsque le document est trop grand pour Atre reproduit en un seul clichA, il est film* A partir de I'angle supArieur gauche, de gauche A droite, et de haut an bas, en prenant le nombre d'images nAcessaire. Les diagrammes suivants illustrent la mAthode. 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5 6 o 5J5 FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA, Seen from the ^vaitiz. of the hotel in the new city of Tacoma, the enormous double- crowned peak of Mount Tacoma dominates the whole landscape. The range of the Cas- cade Mountains, above which it rears its vast snow-fields and its eight great glaciers, looks like a low, green wall by comparison, though its most insignificant summits are higher than the loftiest mountains of the Atlantic States. And wherever you may find yourself on Puget Sound or its shores, be it in the cherry groves of Olympia, or on the lonely waters of Hood's Canal, or on the populous hill-side of Seatde, or by forest-rimmed Lake Wash- ington, or on Port Townsend's high plateau, there is the superb mountain — if the atmos- phere be clear, seemingly close at hand, clean- cut, and luminous ; in other conditions of the air, looking " far, faint, and dim," but never much nearer or more remote, no matter from what point of view it is seen. It is by far the most impressive and the most beautiful of American snow-peaks, with the possible ex- ;;eption of Mount St. Elias in Alaska, with which I cannot claim acquaintance. Its gla- ciers feed five swift rivers : the Cowlitz, flow- ing to the Columbia ; the Chehalis, which empties into the Pacific ; and the Nisqually, Puyallup, and White, which send their milky waters to Puget Sound. I should, perhaps, here explain that Mount Tacoma is the Mount Rainier of the old maps, to which tourists and the dwellers in»the Sound coun- try, except those who live in Seattle, are en- deavoring to restore its musical Indian name, meaning " the nourishing breast." Its alti- tude is 14,440 feet, nearly 3000 more than that of the sharp pyramid of Mount Hooci, the sentinel of the Willamette Valley and the Lower Columbia, and the special pride of the people of PorUand. Its glaciers have lately been made accessible by the cutting of trails through the forest at its base. When you survey them through a glass, comfort- ably seated in an easy-chair on the hotel pia/za, a trip thither seems no (Hfficult under- taking. Apparently you have them right un- der your hand, and can study the topography of their glittering surfaces ; and you are as- tonished when the guide tells you that to go to the foot of one of the glaciers and re- turn takes five days, and that if you get upon the ridge overlooking the chief glacier, you must add two days to tiie journey. He fur- ther explains that the little brown streak on the left of this glacier is a sheer precipice of rock over one thousand feet high, and that the small cracks in the ice-fields are enormous crevasses, over the sides of which you can peer down into dizzy depths and see raging torrents cutting their way through green walls of ice. A visit t "> these glaciers is not, how- ever, a formidable undertaking to persons who do not mind a few days in the saddle, a litde rough camp life, and a fatiguing climb over snow-fields. Tourists go in parties of five or six, provided with horses and camp equipage, and with spiked shoes, iron-pointed staves, and ropes, quite in the Alpine fashion. . The fascinating mountain was not the goal of the journey to be described in this article. My plan was to traverse the wilderness at its foot, cross the Cascade Range by a pass some thirty miles north of it, strike the head-waters of the Yakima River and follow that stream down to its junction with the Columbia, and finally to reach a railroad at Ainsworth, at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia. The distance to be traversed was about two hundred ai.d fifty miles, mainly through an uninhabited country. Before setting out, let us take another glance from our outlook on the high plateau in the town. Here, at our feet, is a broad arm of the Sound, called Commencement Bay. Just beyond are mead- ows, on the eastern forest rim of which stands the friendly group of buildings of the Puyal- lup Indian Agency. All the rest of the land- scape seems an unbroken forest. We can look over it for sixty miles to the crest of the mountains and the notch which indicates the pass where we are to cross. This wilderness appearance is deceptive though, for hidden behind the trees are one hundred and sixty Indian farms, and beyond the reservation containing them lie three little strips of mar- velously fertile valleys, those of the Puyal- lup, Stuck, and White rivers, which together form the most productive hop region for its size in the world. Uj) the Puyallup Valley for thirty miles runs a railroad which brings coal down from mines near the slopes of Mount Tacoma — a brown, crumbling, dirty-looking coal, but so rich in carbon that it is sent by the ship-load to San Francisco for steam-fuel. Our first halt on the journey eastward into the wilderness is at the agency on the reser- vation. The Puyallups are good Indians, but not in the Western sense of l)eing dead Indians. The inhabitants of the ambitious town of Tacomr would I soniewli tolemhl inoval receivec farms, i- dred an( tile who that any I lenient are self-s. ago exp llieni is Vol.. FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. ^ZZ m •ecipice of , and that ; enormous 1 you can see raging green walls not, how- ersons who die, a little climb over s of five or p equipage, ted staves, lion. . lot the goal this article, jrness at its I pass some head-waters that stream lumbia, and insworth, at [ Columbia. 5 about two through an ^ing out, let outlook on ^ere, at our )und, called id are mead- vhich stands f the Puyal- of the land- We can look crest of the indicates the is wilderness I, for hidden ;d and sixty reservation trijjs of mar- the Puyal- lich together ■cgion for its ip Valley for brings coal OS of Mount lirty-looking it is sent bv )r steam-fuel, astward into i)n the reser- Indians, but lead Indians. )us town of Tacoma, which overlooks their little domain, would like to have them die olV, or at least go somewliore else; l)ut tliey arc well -behaved and toieral)ly industrious, and no plea for tlieir re- moval can 1)0 made. Besides, tliey have lately received patents from tlie (loveninient to tlieir farms, ea( li iiead of a family getting one hun- dre<l and sixty acres, and these patents cover the whole are.'; )f the reservation ; so the ho|)e that any part of it will be o|)ene(l to white set- tlement has been abandoned. These Indians are self-supporting, their annuities havinji long ago expired. All the Ciovernment does for them is to pay the cost of the schools, wliere Vol,. .\.\I.\.-S5. MOINT TACOMA, FROM LAKE WASIllNGTON. about one hundred and fifty of their children are educated and at the same time boarded and clad. Farmers in a small way, clearing ittle jiatches of ground on whi(-h they raise wheat and oats, and cutting hay on the natu- ral meadows near the tide-flats, the Puyallups make shift to live in a simple fashion, being helped out in the ])roblem of existence by the fish and dams of the neighboring Sound, and by wages earned every year in the hop-fields up tiie valley during the picking .season. They own horses and cattle, and build for themselves comtbrtable little houses, 'i'hey are a home-staying folk, the dense forests around them oflering no inducements tor roaming, and their only excursions being short trips on the Sound in their graceful, high-prowed pirogues. On the whole, I think they are the most creditable specimens of civili/e(l Indians to be found in the I'"ar West. They govern .•<7f)70 834 FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. themselves in most matters, through officials of their own choosing, the agent keeping a close supervision over them, but rarely being called upon to exercise the arbitrary power which he, like all Indian agents, legally pos- sesses. A board of Indian magistrates pun- ishes criminals and decides civil actions, and a few Indian police under the command of the schoolmaster at the agency keep order on the reservation. If whisky could be kept out, the police might be dispensed with, for the Indians when sober are never quarrelsome, and their honesty is superior to that of the average white man. The agent holds a theory that the inordinate craving of the Indian for whisky is an effect of the change from savage to civil- ized diet and modes of living, and that it will disappear in time, when the race gets wonted to its new conditions. In the schools I heard the Indian children read in the " fourth reader " about as well, save for a curious ac- cent, as children of the same ages in the dis- trict schools of the States. They wrote a fair hand, too, and sang Moody and Sankey hymns. Arithmetic, the teacher said, is t^eir hardest task. The dormitories and dining-room were very neat, and the whole place was cheery and home-like. The more capable pupils, when they Uixive at the age of fifteen or sixteen, are sent to the industrial school at Forest Grove, Oregon, where they are taught trades. The others return to their homes after receiving an ordinary common-school education. The agent, who is the son of one of the first missionaries among the Oregon Indians, and has himself been many years in the work of civilizing the tribes of Puget Sound, drove us about among the Indian farms all one afternoon. The houses were as comfortable as those of white settlers in new regions, and the crops appeared well cared for. The men were at work m the hop-fields. In their blue shirts and h'ckory trousers they had nothing of the look of the savage al)out them, save their long hair. That is the la-st distinguishnig badge of the wild state that the 1 ndian gives up ; he clings to his long locks as persistently as a Chinaman to his queue. The agent addressed all whom we met in Chinook, iiKjuiring after their fiimilies and their crops, and answering ([uestions about the children in the ager..^ school. Chinook, the curious jargon invented by the Hudson's Bay Company's agents about a hundred years ago, is the language of business and social intercourse among all the tribes of the North Pacific coast. It is to this region what French is to Europe. With a knowledge of its three hundred words, an Indian or a white trader or missionary (an travel among the numerous tribes west of the Rocky Mountains and make himself understood. There are no moods or tenses to the verbs, no cases to the nouns, no comparison of the adjectives, and only one prep- osition. Gestures and emphasis must be relied upon to help out the meager vocabulary, which is a droll mixture of Indian, English, and French words. I heard an amusing story on the eastern side of the Cascade Mountains of a Bos..on gen- tleman who undertook to translate Chiaook by its sound. He was visiting the Yakima Reser- vation, and for some reason the Indians did not like him, and were in the habit of calling him " hyas cultus Boston man." The visitor remarked to his friends that even the savages recognized the superiority of Boston culture, for they always spoke of him as a highly cul- tured Boston man. It was not until the joke had been a long time enjoyed that he was told that " hyas " meant very, and " cultus "bad or worth- less, and that " Boston man " was the Chinook term for all Americans, — Englishmen and Can- adians being called " King George men." Beyond the Indian farms in the Puyallup Valley lie the hop-fields, reaching up the river towards Mount Tacoma for ten miles, and also along the Stuck River, a slough connect- ing the Puyallup with the White, and for perhaps a dozen miles on the banks of the latter stream. Only the maple and alder bot- toms near the streams make good hop land, and they are so productive that wild land, which costs eighty dollars an acre to clear, sells for from fifty to one hundred dollars an acre. Hop land in good condition, with poles and growing vines, but without build- ings, is worth three hundred dollars an acre. Whoever possesses a twenty-acre field, with a drying-house, is comfortably well off". An average yield is fifteen hundred pounds to the acre ; a large one, twenty-five hundred pounds. A veteran hop-raiser who has been thirteen years in the business told me that it costs two hundred dollars an acre to make and market a crop. Including picking, drying, and binding, he figured the cost at ten cents per pound, of which the picking alone is six. The in- dustry is a fascinating one, having a good deal of the character of a lottery, the jjrice of hops having run uj) and down during the past few years over the wide range of from ten cents to one dollar. My informant ex- jK'cted to get thirty-five cents this year. His forty acres would yield him eighty thousand pounds, he thought, which would bring hiin twenty-eight thousand dollars. The cost to him at ten cents jjcr pound would be eight thousand dollars, leaving a profit of twenty lhousan<l dollars. There are not many ways of getting so large an amount of money out of forty acres of ground. The thorough cultiva- tion of these little valleys reminds one of the vineyard countries of Europe, but the resem- FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. 835 : nouns, no lyoneprep- ist be relied ilary, which and French I the eastern Bos-.on gen- Chinook by cima Reser- [ndinns did it of calling The visitor the savages ton culture, L highly cul- the joke had vas told that ladorworth- the Chinook lenandCan- Tc men." ;he Puyallup up the river I miles, and jgh connect- ite, and for janks of the id alder bot- )d hop land, It wild land, ere to clear, ;d dollars an idition, with ithout build- liars an acre. : field, with a ell off. An )ounds to the dred pounds, jeen thirteen It it costs two and market a and binding, s per pound, six. The in- ving a good , the ijrice of n during the ingc of from nformant ex- lis year. His ;lUy thousand il bring him The cost to juld be eight )fit of twenty many ways of money out of •ough cultiva- uls one of the )Ut the resem- blance vanishes as soon as the eye falls on the forest walls that encompass them on all sides. In the hop-picking season there occurs a remarkable pilgrimage from the Indian tribes of Washington Territory and British Colum- bia. The Indians come in their pirogues from Puget Sound, from Frazer River, from Van- couver's Island, and even from the shores of the Pacific. Others cross the mountain trails on ponies from the valleys of the Yakima and the Upper Columbia and from the distant forests of the Coeur d'Alfenes. To the number of five thousand, they gather every year in the hop region to furnish labor for picking. Of course, for the most part, the workers are women and children, the men spending much of their time in gambling, smoking, and lounging. This great influx of savagery pro- duces no alarm among the white settlers ; in- deed, they would be helpless to gather their crop without the abundant supply of red labor. By the Indians the hop-picking season is looked forward to all the year with pleas- ant anticipation as the one great break in the monotony of their lives — a time of travel, excitement, sociability, love-making, and mar- rying, as well as of earning money to buy blan- kets, clothing, trinkets, and sugar. They give the white people ver)' little trouble, being neither rowdyish nor thievish. The farmers sleep with their doors unlocked while the neighboring woods are alive with Indian camps. Well mounted and equipped for camp life in the wilderness, we left the valley of the Puyallup near the South Prairie coal-mine, and, scrambling up a steep bluff, struck into the dense forest on a trail that meandered about to avoid fallen tree trunks. The timber growth was composed of enormous firs and cedars, having trunks eight or ten feet in diameter at their base, and sending their straight columns up into the air to a height of fully two hundred and fifty feet. The pro- cesses of life and death were going on side by side in this forest, uprooted trees that had lived out their time cumbering the ground and filling the air with the peculiar odor of decaying wood. In places the dead trunks would lie across each other in confused masses. Sometimes the trail would go beneath a gigantic trunk caught in the arms of two standing e^ 01 wouLl make a detour to go around the cliff like wail formed I)y the up- lorn roots of one of these dead monarchs of the woods. A dense underbrush of alders and young cedars made it im|)ossibie to see a do/en yards from the trail ; and to add to the jungle-like appearaiue of ihe forest, the ground was covered witii a growlii of gigantic ferns, usually taller than a man's head, and often high enough to conceal a man on horseback. Beneath the ferns grew a grayish-green moss, as soft as a velvet carpet and ten times as thick. The trail led across a plateau and then de- scended sharply to the White River, a swift, glacier-fed stream drawing its waters from the slopes of Mount Tacoma. A few settlers have established themselves on the upper waters of this river, and made farms on small natural prairies in the shadows of the great forest, where they raise hops and oats. We forded the river, the water coming up above the sad- dle-girths, and the unwilling horses picking their way cautiously over the stones in the rapid, murky current. The afternoon's ride took us through a " big bum." These " burns" are marked features of Cascade Mountain scenery. The name is applied to a strip of plateau or mountain-side where a fire has ravaged the forest, devouring the underbrush, consuming all the dead trees and many of the living ones, and leaving those that have not perished in its devastating progress standing naked and brown. Nature rapidly covers the scene of the ruin with a mantle of ferns, and the " bum " soon looks rather cheerful than other- wise, because it resembles a clearing and af- fords a view of the sky. Two settlers' cabins were passed that afternoon, occupied by farm- ers who had come in last year from Kansas, and had already redeemed a few acres from the forest, and could show flourishing fields of wheat and oats. Towards even- ig the trail be- came more diflftcult. There was not the slight- est danger of losing it, because a horse could not possibly have gone his length into the intricate maze of young cedars and fallen fir trunks on either side ; but progress upon it was an active athletic exercise, involving leaping over or dodging under tree trunks, pushing through barricades of bushes and brambles, mounting and dismounting a dozen times in every mile. The difliculties of the tangled track had not discouraged an enterprising German from taking his wife and three babies over it, and making a home on the border of a " burn " and on the banks of a little lake. We reached his cabin just at nightfall of our first day's journey. He is the most advanced settler towards the Stampede Pass in the Cas- cade Range. The two doors and three win- dows of his house he packed in on the back of a horse, but all the rest of the edifice he had made with his axe out of cedar poles and one fallen cedar-tree, splitting out the siding, the shingles, and the flooring. In like manner he had built a barn, a chicken-house, and a kennel for his big Newfoundland dog, and had fenced in with palings a bit of a door- yard, where his wife had made a few flower- beds in which bachelor's-buttons, poppies, and portulacas flou ished. The man had also I 836 FTiOM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. TYLER CLACIEK, MOUNT TACOMA. ALTITUDE AT FACE, 5800 FEET. managed to clear a three-acre field, where he was raising a fine crop of potatoes. All this he had done between May and August — ac- tually creating a home, a field, and a garden in five months' time, with the unaided labor of his own hands. And he was a little fellow too, but he was always jolly, and perhaps that was the secret of his wonderful achieve- ments. All the time he was singing his old Westphalian songs, and his flaxen-haired wife was jolly too ; and any living creatures jollier than those three tow-headed children I never saw. What ditl he get to eat ? Why, he could knock over a dozen pheasants any morning in the nearest thicket, and the lake was full of trout. After a few years it would not be all wilderness about him, he said ; the railroad would come, and by that time he would have eighty acres of good cleared land. Would he not be lonesome in the long wuiter ? Oh, no ! he would have plenty to do "slashing," /. <•., cutting down the trees preparatory to burn- ing them, — the usual process of clearing land where there is no market for the timber. We (;am|)ed very comfortably that night on a pile cf hay in the settler's shed -barn, a structure half roofed over, but still wanting sides, and were early on the trail next morn- ing, after a breakfast of ham, bread, and cof- fee. The profuse and luxuriant vegetation continued. A noticeable plant, called the devil's club from the brier-like character of its stem, spread out leaves as large as a Parama hat, and thrust up a spear-like bunch of reel berries. The wild syringa perfumed the air. There were two varieties of the elder — the common one of the East, having black berries, and one growing much higher and bearing large red berries. Thimbleberry bushes grew in dense thickets. The little snowball berr\ cultivated in eastern door-yards was seen, and also whortleberries and blueberries. Among the flowers was a " jileeding-heart," in form like the familiar garden flower, but much smaller, and of a pale purple color. The mosi common bloom was the gay Erigeroncauadoi- sis, or " fire-weed," which occupied every spoi where it could find a few rays of sunlight. About noon of this second day's march we descended bv a steep zigzag |)ath to the soutli FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. 837 s shed-barn, a t still wanting lil next morn- )read, and cof- int vegetation nt, called the character of its e as a Parama i bunch of red fumed the air. he elder — the g black berries, r and bearing ry bushes grew nowball berry swas seen, and Tries. Among leart," in form k-er, init much 3lor. The most if^eroncauadfii- )ied ev ery spoi ys of sunlight, ay's march wf th to the soutli bank of Green River, a handsome trout-stream, brawling over rocks or resting in quiet dark- green pools. A great field of excellent bitu- minous coal, partly explored, and waiting for a railroad to make it valuable, lies in veins from six to ten feet thick under the forests that border this stream. It is the best coal thus far discovered in Washington Territory. In its vicinity lie beds of rich iron ore. So here, hidden in this tangled wilderness, are the elements of a great industry, which in the future will make these solitudes pc^ ulous. The trail turned up the narrow valley of Green River, and thence on for many miles it clambered up steep slopes and plunged down into the lateral ravines formed by the tributary streams — up or d ^wn nearly all the way, with rarely a hundred yards of tolerably level ground. It was a toilsome day for men and animals, but for the riders enlivened with the sense of adventure, and with thoughts now and then of what would happen if a horse should make a false step on the verge of a precipice where the path clung to a mountain wall atthousand feet above the roar- ing river. Travel on a mountain trail is never monotonous. Youi" perceptive faculties are kept on the alert to dodge projecting branches and watch for all the various chances and changes of the track. Then there are ascents ; too steep for your horse to carry you, and de ; scents too abrupt for safe riding \ streams to ford, quagmires to flounder through, and divers other incidents to enliven the journey. Our second night on the trail was spent at a camp of engineers engaged in locating the line of a railroad over the Cascade Moun- tains to connect eastern Washington with the Puget Sound country. This project of sur- mounting the formidable barrier of the Cas- cades is as old as the time when Governor Isaac I. Stevens conducted a government expedition from St. Paul to Puget Sound, in ' 1853, to determine the feasibility of a north- ern route for a railroad to the Pacific. It was ; on Stevens's report that there were passes in .he range practicable for a railroad that the original charter of the Northern Pacific Com- pany, granted by Congress in 1862, desig- nated a route from the Upper Columbia to the Sound for the main line of that road. This was amended by Congress in 1870, and the main line was changed so as to run down the Columbia River to Portland, and thence northward to the Sound, getting through the mountains by the only gap opened by nature, ?that of the great gorge of the Columbia. At 'the same time the short line across the moun- tains was designated as the Cascade Branch. Surveys to find a feasible pass for this branch have been prosecuted with more or less dili- VoL. XXIX.— 86. gence and with several long intermissions ever since 1870. During the past three years a great deal of money has been spent upon these surveys. How expensive they have been may be judged from the fact that to run a reconnaissance line through the dense forests, encumbered by prostrate timber, which clothe the western slope of the Cascades, requires the services of ten axemen to open a path along which .the engineers can advance a mile or two a day with their instruments. All this labor and expenditure of money has been crowned with success, however, and a pass has been found up which a railroad can be built, but at the summit a tunnel nearly two miles long must be excavated. It \, ill be the longest tunnel in America with the excep- tion of that through the Hoosac Mountains in Massachusetts. The engineers' camp on the bank of the brawling torrent of Green River was so cheer- '^ul a spot, with its white tents and blazing .ires, that, although it was early in the after- noon, saddles and packs were taken off the horses and the decision made to go no far- ther that day. The midsummer air in the mountains was so cool that the warmth of the fires was grateful. So were the hot biscuits and steaming coffee provided by the cook, and the pink-fleshed trout caught in the river. Stories of encounters with cougars and bears were told around the crackling fir logs that evening. The cinnamr^n bear is apt to be an ugly customer, it was agreed, but the black bear is not dangerous unless it be a she-bear with o.ibs. The cougar, or mountain lion, is the most redoubtable beast of these wilds. Perhaps the best way to deal with one of these huge felines is that adopted by an Insh axeman, who thus narrated his adventure : " I was a-coming along the trail with nie blankets on me back, and with niver as much as a stick to defind mesilf, when all at onst I saw a terrible big cougar not two rods ahead of me, twistin' his tail and getting ready fer to jump. I come upon him that suddent that it was hard to tell which was the most surprised, me or the baste. Well, sor, I trim- bled like a man with the ager. But I saw that something had to be done, and dom'd quick too. So I threw down me blankets and gave one hiduous yell. That was onexpected by the cougar. He niver heard such a noise be- fore, and he just turned tail and jumped into the brush. I picked up me blankets and made the best time into camp that was ever made on that trail." The civil engineers engaged in the railroad surveys arc educated young men from the East, the younger ones often fresh from col- lege. They spend the greater part of the year 838 FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. immured in the forest, with no communica- tion with the world save that furnished by the pack-train which comes in once a week to bring supplies. A good story was told at the camp fire of one of the engineers who, after he had been eight months in the woods, went back to the settlements. Approaching a house, he saw a woman's calico gown hanging on a line. The sight so affected him that he got off his horse and kissed the hem of the garment. The faded gown was emblematic to the young man's mind of all the graces and refinements of civilization, of woman's tenderness and love, of his far-off Massachusetts home, and the mother, sisters, and sweetheart he had left there. The third day of our journey through the forest led up the narrow gorge of Green River, the trail now skirting the river's bank, and now climbing over mountain shoulders thrust out into the stream. The forest, if pos- sible, grew more dense as we advanced. The damp ground, never reached by the sun's rays, was covered with a thick growth of gi- gantic ferns and of the broad-leaved devil's- club. I saw cedar-trees ten feet in diameter above the point where their trunks spread out to take a firm hold upon the ground. There were many queer tree growths. Tall fir sap- lings grew out of prostrate, decaying trunks. From the roots of an enormous dead cedar, whose broken column was still standing, arose four large young trees, each at least one hun- dred and fifty feet high, and standing so close to each other and to the dead parent tree that there was not more than two yards' space between them. Near by a fir and a cedar had grown together for a few yards above the ground, so as to form a common trunk. Fall- en trees and often the trunks and lower limbs of live ones were thickly sheathed in moss — not the trailing tree-moss of the Rocky Mountain forests, but a thick, tufted, carpet-like moss, of the same variety as that growing upon the ground. After a hard day's march we forded the river towards sunset and camped upon the north bank. The fire was soon made, the biscuits were baked in the tin reflector oven, the coffee was boiled, the ham was fried, and the horses were fed with the barley they had carried on their backs. Then the tent-fly was set up with one end against two enormous firs that grew side by side, and luxurious beds were made of moss and hemlock boughs, and we went to sleep, happy in the thought that the next day's march would take us up to the summit of the pass and down on the eastern slope of the mountains. Next morning we left the main stream of Green River, already diminished to a narrow torrent, and began to follow up the course of Sunday Creek, the trail clinging to the steep slopes of the mountain walls. About noon the actual ascent of the divide began. An hour of hard climbing, crossing from side to side of a narrow ravine, or zigzagging along its wooded walls, the forest thinning out a little as we went up, brought us to a little lake. Just above was a " big burn," where the tim- ber had been swept clean off by fire save a few blackened stumps, and in the middle of this " burn " was Stampede Pass, a narrow notch with a sharp ascent on both sides. Our horses quickened their pace, as if knowing that the long, hard climb was almost over; and after a few seconds' dash over ashes and charcoal we stood on the ridge of the pass. The first glance was naturally on beyond to the eastward. Far down in a deep valley, placid and green, lay I.ake Kichilas. Farther on were mountain ranges, not densely tim- bered like those of the western slopes of the Cascades, but showing bare places, and, where wooded, covered with the Rocky Mountain pine, which grows in an open way, with little underbrush. The reddish trunks of these trees give color to an entire mountain-side. It was to the westward, however, that the view was most striking; for there, towering far above the green ridges of the Cascades, rose the dazzling snow-fields and glaciers of Mount Tacoma. Above them rested a girdle of clouds, and above the clouds, serene in the blue ether, glittered the white summits. The peak seemed much higher than when seen from the sea-level of the Sound. Mountains of great altitude always show to best advan- tage when seen from considerable elevations. We had been climbing all day to reach our point of view, and yet the gigantic peak tow- ered aloft into the sky to a height that seemed incredible, as if it were only the semblance of a mountain formed by the clouds. Stampede Pass got its name four years ago, when a party of trail-cutters, camped at the little lake near its summit, not liking the treatment they received from their boss, stampeded in a body and returned to the settlements. Later, the engineers called it Garfield Pass, because there the news of President Garfield's assassination came to them ; but the first name is the one generally used, rhe elevation of the pass is about five thousand feet, or double that of the point where the Pennsylvania Railroad crosses the Alleghany Mountains. The descent eastward to the streams that form the Yakima River is only moderately abrupt, and one can ride down the zigzag trail with no great danger of pitching over his horse's head. The char- acter of the forest growth is very different from that on the western slooes of the moun- tains, the gigantic firs and cedars disappear- i i )Out noon the m. An hour side to side ing along its ig out a little a little lake, here the tim- )y fire save a he middle of ss, a narrow th sides. Our s if knowing almost over; ver ashes and : of the pass, an beyond to deep valley, lilas. Farther densely tim- slopes of the es, and, where ;ky Mountain 'ay, with little of these trees i-side. It was the view was ing far above ides, rose the ers of Mount a girdle of serene in the summits. The in when seen 1. Mountains o best advan- ble elevations. yr to reach our itic peak tow- it that seemed he semblance loads. four years ago, amped at the lot liking the n their boss, turned to the eers called it the news of tion came to : one generally is is about five ; of the point ad crosses the scent eastward akima River is one can ride ) great danger ad. The char- very difterent s of the moun- lars disappear- FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. 839 ing as soon as the summit is crossed, and in their places appearing a species of small mountain fir, growing thickly, but with little underbrush and no intricate barricades of fallen trunks. The flowers are of new species, and the pine-grass grows in the woods. Evi- dently the climatic conditions are widely dis- similar to those on the western side of the great range,' the moisture-laden atmosphere of the Puget Sound country, which produces a phenomenal vegetable growth, not crossing ihe mountain-wall. Probably there is no- where on ihe globe as marked a climatic boundary as that of the Cascade Mountains in both Washington Territory and Oregon. West of this boundary the winters are mild, with much rain and little snow, and the sum- mers cool and showery ; while east of it the winters are sharp and dry, with abundant snowfall, and the summers very hot, little rain falling between the first of June and the first of October. On Puget Sound you have the climate of Ireland, while just across the moun- tains in the valley of the Yakima weather and landscapes in summer recall northern Cali- fornia. Our fourth day's march was the longest on the trail. We made twenty-five miles, and came at sunset to a wagon-road and a fenced field, evidences of settlement that were greeted with enthusiasm. There was a house, too, tenanted by the most advanced settler mountainwards in the Yakima Valley. He kept a toll-gate, and levied a tax on emigrants about to struggle over the Snoqualmie Pass to the Sound country. Nominally there is a wagon-road through this pass all the way to Seattle, and stout wagons lightly loaded are somehow gotten across the mountains by courageous emigrants who carve their way with their axes through the fallen timber. The chief utility of the road, however, is for the driving of catde. All the Sound country, and much of British Columbia, get their beef supply from the bunch-grass plains east of the Cascades. It takes seven days to drive a herd of cattle from the Upper Yakima to Seattle, which is the beef market of the Sound. The night was spent in a deserted cabin on beds of boughs eked out with a little hay which the last occupant had left. Breakfast on the grass next morning was enlivened by a visit from a flock of Hudson's Bay birds that at- tempted to share the meal, and, after carrying off several crackers, made an attack on the remains of a ham. These familiar brown birds, sometimes called lumberman's friends or whisky-jacks, discern the smoke of a camp- fire miles away, and are speedily on hand to clear up the crumbs. Our horseback journey was now at end. A good friend in Portland had sent a team and spring wagon a hundred and fifty miles from the Lower Yakima to meet us at the end of the wagon-road. Our excellent Scotch guide, with the cook, the packer, the saddle-horses, and the pack-animals, turned back to retrace their steps over the long trail to the Puyallup Valley. Blankets and bags were transferred to the wagon, and ',»'e set off through the open pine woods, over a very fair road, down the valley of the Yakima. The road did not follow the strearn closely, but only kept its general course, taking across the hills to avoid the canons and muddy bottoms. Only one house was seen in the forenoon's drive. It was in- habited by three C ermans, who had " taken up" a natural timotbv meadow, and were getting rich cutting a ^lundred tons of hay every year, and selling it to herders on their way to the Sound at twenty-five dollars a ton. They had an irrigated garden full of all sorts of vegetables. About noon another farm was reached, where a Maine man was raising fine crops of oats and wheat by irrigation. A big barn filled with hay and a comfortable log- house flanked by apple-trees were invitations to rest not to be refused in a wild country. The housekeeper prepared a surprisingly good dinner — the first civilized meal the travelers had eaten since leaving the hotel at Tacoma. There were fresh vegetables and roast beef, coffee and cream that defied criticism, and an apple-pie that could not be surpassed in New. England. We sat upon benches, and in the parlor the only furniture was three wooden chairs and a rude table ; but there were chintz curtains at the windows, hanging from cornices made of moss, and on the table were many newspapers and a copy of The Century. The next house on the road belonged to Indian John, a famous character among the whites of the Upper Yakima country, and a sockalee tyec, or big chief, among the Kittitas Indians. John has a few well-fenced fields of grain, and a good log-cabin, window- less and with a hole in the roof to let out the smoke from the fire burning on the ground in the middle of the one room. The women of his household were busy drying service-berries, but when our driver told them in Chinook that we were going to take a photograph of the place, the younger ones hurried into the cabin and speedily put on what finery they possessed in the shape of blue gowns, brass bracelets, and girdles of bead-work studded with brass nails. John wore civilized clothes, but a young Indian, presumably the husband of the squaw with the baby, was attired in scarlet leggins, green breech-cloth, and blue tunic, and his face was liberally adorned with vermilion paint. John is a thrifty fellow, and 840 FBOM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. when his relations come to visit him and live upon him Indian fashion, he sets them to work building fences or hoeing potatoes. He wants to marry his youngest daughter to a white man. He says the siwashes (Indians) are cultus, which in Chinook means " no good." The girl might be thought rather too buxom to suit a critical taste, and objections might also be made to her mouth and feet on the score of their size ; but as to her good- nature there could be no doubt after she had smiled all over her face at each of the travelers and merrily winked her black eyes. A few miles beyond Indian John's ranch the forest stops abruptly on the crest of a hill, and the bunch-grass plains begin. They are not plains in the sense of being at all level. On the contrary, they are heaved up in hills and ridges and low bare mountain ranges, and creased by many valleys and canons ; but they are destitute of timber, save along the streams, and are sere, yellow, and dusty, and thus con- form to the Far- Western meaning of the word plains. The soil is composed of disintegrated basaltic rock, and, whether on lofty crests or steep slopes or in deep ravines, is alike cov- ered with the same monotonous vegetation of bunch-grass, wild sunflowers, sage-brush, and grease- wood. The colors of the landscapes are dirty browns and yellows and faded sage- green, save where a belt of alders and wil- lows skirts a creek. In May and June, when .the grass is fresh and the sunflowers are in bloom, the country seems carpeted with fresh green and gold ; but this season of verdure and blossoms only lasts a few weeks, and then comes the long, dry, dusty summer. The plains of the great Columbia basin occupy a stretch of country of almost circular form, and of about three hundred miles across, sur- rounded by the Cascade Mountains on the west, the Blue Mountains on the south, the Bitter Root and Coeur d'Alfene Mountains on the east, and the Peshastin, Colville, and other ranges on the north. From north to south, nearly midway of the basin's width, flows the Columbia. The eastern part of the basin is mainly drained by the Snake, the Palouse, and the Spokane rivers, and the western part by the Yakima and its tributaries. In the afternoon of the first day's travel by wagon, and the fifth of our journey from Puget Sound, we entered the Kittitas Valley, and saw its market-town of Ellensburg lying in white spots against, a brown hill-side fifteen miles distant. This valley is the most exten.sive and most thickly settled between the Cas- cade Mountains and the Columbia. It is twenty miles long and from three to ten miles wide, and, being well watered and easy to irri- gate, has attracted a thrifty farming popula- tion. With a few small tributary valleys, it is said to contain two thousand five hundred people, of whom some four hundrec'. live in the town. Forty bushe's of wheat to tie acre and four hundred of potatoes are average yields on the rich irrigated lands. In spite of their iso- lation from markets, — the valley is one hun- dred and fifty miles from the nearest accessi- ble transportation line, — the farmers appear prosperous, their houses and barns being of a better character than are usually seen in new countries. Settlement in the valley dates back ten years ; but most of the people have come in during the past four or five years, attracted by the prospect of a railroad as well as by the fertility of the soil.* Of Ellensburg little need be said. It is a creditable frontier \illage for one so new and so remote, supporting two weekly newspapers and an academy. Tiie Yakima River flows by the town in a swift, deep current, fed by snows but not by glcciers, as its clear, blue waters testify. Froui a high ridge south of the town the top of Mount Tacoma can be seen, but it is much less impressive from this point of view than is Mount Stuart, the highest peak of the Peshastin Range, which bounds the prospect on the north. I confess never to have heard the name of this range before, yet it is immeasurably grander than the White Mountains or the Adirondacks. Mount Stuart, usually called Monument Peak, is ten thou- sand feet high, and is as bold and peculiar in its form as the Matterhorn in Switzerland. The whole range is savage and precipitous, a serrated ridge of brown rock, with many jagged peaks, too steep to carry much snow save in the deep ravines. At the foot of these magnificent mountains lie four deep, green, forest - rimmed lakes — Kichilas, Kachees, Kitallum, and Cleellum. The region is wild and little known, and is very inviting to ad- venturous explorers. Veins of copper carry- ing considerable gold and silver have recently been discovered there, and a vein of coal so good for blacksmithing purpo;>es that it is hauled down to the Kittitas Valley and sold for thirty dollars a ton. Going southward from Ellensburg, there is no settlement after leaving the Kittitas Valley until the Wenass Valley is reached, a distance of twenty miles. The Yakima plunges into a deep canon with sides so steep that there is no room for a road. So the road climbs over two bare, brown ridges, one high enough to figure on the maps as a mountain range. From its crest the squares of green and gold * The journey described in this article was made in the summer of 1884. up the Yaitima Valley has advanced as far as Yakima City. — E. V. S. Since then the railroad-building ■It. l. d easy to irri- ning popula- valleys, it is five hundred rer. live in the t le acre and age yields on ; of their iso- r is one hun- arest accessi- rmers appear ns being of a ' Y seen in new ey dates back lie have come ears, attracted well as by the said. It is a le so new and ly newspapers I River flows urrent, fed by its clear, blue re south of the 1 can be seen, rem this point :, the highest which bounds )nfess never to ige before, yet an the White Mount Scuart, k, is ten thou- md peculiar in n Switzerland, id precipitous, ;k, with many Ty much snow le foot of these r deep, green, las, Kachees, region is wild inviting to ad- " copper carry- :r have recently vein of coal so OSes that it is '^alley and sold nsburg, there is Kittitas Valley :hed, a distance , plunges into a :p that there is jad climbs over high enough to lountain range, green and gold > railroad-building F/IOM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMBIA. 841 I ^ formed by the fields of oats and ripened wheat in the Kittitas Valley made a very pretty landscape effect. The-ridges separating the narrow valleys are covered with an abun- dant growth of bunch-grass, and are good summer ranges for stock ; but the snow lies on them too deeply in winter for cattle to range, as in Montana, all the year round; consequently there is but little stock in the country. The Wenass is a tributary of the Yakima, and it makes a good agricultural valley, twenty miles long, but only one or two farms wide. About three hundred people in- habit it. Ten miles farther south come the Nachess Valley, wider, but not so long as the Wenass, and the Coweechee Valley, narrower and longer than the Nachess. Both are well settled. On a farm at the mouth of this val- ley, where we halted for supper, apples, plums, cherries, raspberri , ij i blackberries grew luxuriantly, and in an irrigated garden all sorts of vegetal I ; : flourished. The Nachess debouches into the Yakima Valley, a name applied locally to only about fifteen miles of the course of the Yakima River, where there is an irrigable plain eight oi' ten miles wide, partly under cultivation, and supporting the town of Yakima City, with its eight hundred inhabitants. We reached the " city " about dark, having traversed forty miles of good road without meeting a single person trav- eling in the opposite direction. Save a few herds of cattle and bands of horses and nu- merous flocks of grouse, there was no life on the grassy slopes and ridges. Yakima City stands at the junction of the Attanam Creek with the Yakima River, and on the east side of the river there is a third inhabited valley, called the Moxee. In all these valleys farm- ing by irrigation is very successful. The soil is a fine powder, carrying no trace of sand ; the whole region was once volcanic and later the bed of a lake. A little water applied to this rich soil, with the aid of the heat of the long summer days, causes all the cereals and vegetables of the temperate zone, and all the fruits, save peaches, to flourish amazingly. One acre will produce as much as three of good farm-land in the Eastern States. The town is a medley of cheap wooden buildings and vegetable gardens, shaded by Lombardy poplars, and backed up against a ridge of bulging brown hills. In summer the mercury frequently goes up to one hundred degrees ; but the climate is remarkably healthy, owing, no doubt, to the dryness of rhe air and soil. The inhabi^^unts think the place beautiful, and so it is when contrasted with the hot, weari- some expanses of sage-brush and bunch-grass and powdery dust one must traverse to reach it. Little streams of clear water run along the sides of the streets and are sluiced off" into the gardens. The town is the trade center of all the region between the Cascades and the Columbia, and is waiting impatiently for the railroad advancing up the Yakima to aug- ment its business and population. At present the merchants 'haul their goods from the Dalles, about a hundred miles distant, and thither go such products of the country as can profitably be transported so far in wagons. When the railroad goes through the mountains, all these fertile little irrigated valleys, drained by the Yakima, will get rich raising fruits, vegeta- bles, grain, and cattle for tlic 'ound cities, which now get their supplies ala>nst entirely from San Francisco. Uitch enttrprises on a large scale will then recli'm thousands of acres that now grow notb ' ■■ but sage-brush. I heard a good deal ot talk in Vakiikt City of a project on the part of the railroad com- pany to create a new town r> ..r the junction of the Nachess and Yakima rivers, with the view of making it a model place of wide streets, deep lots, shade-trees, flowers, and running streams, by the aid ot the abun- dant waters of the Nachess, available for ir- rigation. The future city, which as yet hardly exists on paper, is already in imagination the flourishing capital of the great State of Washington. Its proposed site is now .-. waste of dust and sage-brush, but, with plenty of water and plenty of money, the project of making this desert blossom like the rose would be perfectly feasible. Leaving Yakima City and traveling in a south-easterly direction, our road ran for about fifty miles through an Indian reservation be- longing to a number of tribes gathered from the entire region between the Cascade Moun- tains and the Upper Columbia — Yakimas, Klickitats, Kittitas, and others whose names are only known locally. About three thou- sand souls belong upon this reservation, but there are probably not more than half that number actually living on it, the others pre- ferring their old homes in the mountains, where they can hunt, or on the banks of the Columbia, wh "e the salmon furnish an abun- dant food supply. Those upon the reservation are pardy civhized, culti-ating small field;; of grain and herding cattle. Nominally they have all been Christianized, and Methodists and Catholics compete for the honor of sav- ing their souls ; but a considerable number render secret homage to an old humpbacked Indian prophet, named Smohallo, who has in- vented a religion of his own. This dusky Ma- homet lives in the desert, near Priests' Rapids, on the Columbia, where he has a village of adhe'^ents, and is constantly visited by admir- ers from tl. i reservation, who bring him tribute. 842 ■ % \ FROM PUGET SOUND TO THE UPPER COLUMB/A. He goes into trances and professes to have communion with the Great Spirit. An army officer, who recently visited Smohallo's village to see if the old fellow was brewing any mis- chief, told me that he witnessed a singular relig- ious ceremony in a tent. The prophet sat on a hassock, with a bell in his hand. In front of him were twelve Indians in red shirts, on one side six maidens in white gowns, and on the other six in red gowns. The ringing of the bell was a signal for them to kneel or rise. The service consisted of chants and a dis- course by the prophet. At one time he fell on the ground in a trance, and after a few min- utes arose and announced a pretended revela- tion from the heavenly powers. Smohallo was educated by the Jesuit fathers at the Coeur d'Al^ne Mission, and evidently has borrowed his ceremonials from those he saw there. He is a disturbing element among the Indians, be- cause he tries to dissuade them from industry, saying that the earth is their mother, and that to plow the ground is to scratch her skin, to dig ditches is to wound her breast, and to open mines is to crack her bones, and that she will not receive them after they die if they thus abuse her. The Yakima Reservation lies between the river and the Simcoe Mountains. Most of it is sage-brush land, but for three hours we drove through a green country covered with rye-grass standing higher than our horses' heads, with rich pasturage of smaller herbage among it. Opposite, on the white man's side of the valley, there is little or no selUement, but the land lies favorably for reclamation by ditches taken from the river. Some of the Ind ans live in frame houses evidently built by the Government, for they are of one pattern ; others have b'lilt log structures for themselves, while many still adhere to the " wicky-up " — a shapeless hut made from a combination of brush and mats woven from reeds. They have adopted white customs in one respect, at least, for they have set up a toll-gate and tax travelers fifty cents for driving across their country. The toll-gate keeper was in a morose frame of mind. He had recently been arrested by the agent, put in the " skookum-house " (jail), and fined sixty dollars for having two wives. He said he could not sei what the harm was as long as the women were both satisfied, and grumbled about the loss of the money he had saved to buy a now horse-rake. Our noonday halt was at a ranch on the north side of the river. The ranchman ferried the team across on a flatboat, and invited us to rest in rocking-chairs u.i a piazza roofed with green cottonwood boughs while his wife got dinner. He had taken up a green spot in the sage-brush waste, and was making butler from fifty cows, and putting up great stack^ of hay for their winter feed. He was a shrewa and prosperous man, and his success had al-j ready attracted other settlers. The afternoon's journey was through a country wholly deso-j late. The river itself seemed to get discouraged,! and ran with a sluggish current through the parched and thirsty land, which constantly robbed it of its waters, so that its volume di-1 minished as it advanced. Hidden by the bare hills that bounded the southern horizon layj however, a grassy valley, called Horse Heaven J where fifty families have settled during the past year. Northward the landscape was al^ a burning-hot, dusty sage-brush plain slopinp up to the Rattlesnake Mountains. The nigh^ was spent restfuUy on clean blankets in ar engineers' camp, on the line of the advancing railroad. A mile away was a settlement started by an ex-Congressman from Tennessee, whc hopes that ditch enterprises and the water^ power of the falls of the Yakima will develop a town on his lands. The next day — the tenth since we left! Puget Sound — was the most trying of the whole journey. The heat was intolerable.1 Probably it would have been about 105° Fah-T renheit in the shade if there hac been anj shade. What it was in the sun nobody at-| tempted to estimate. The dust covered thfl faces of the travelers with yellow masks anr penetrated their clothing, forming a thick de-| posit all over their bodies. Eighteen miles ir a wagon brought us to the end of the rail-l way track buiit last year, but not yet operated] and not put in order since the winter rains, sc that a locomotive could not get over it. Here we transferred ourselves to a hand-car. The three passengers sat in front, with their feetj hanging down over the ties and knocking against the weeds and sand-heaps. Four stoujj fellows at the levers got an average speed 0^ nearly ten miles an hour out of the little ma-j chine. To the heat of the direct rays of the sun was added that reflected from the rails, the sandy embankment, and the sides of the cutsJ With what joy we descried in the early after-j noon the broad, blue flood of the Columbia 1 Whai a satisfaction it was to rest in the shade of a tent by the margin of the cool waters I In the evening a diminutive steamboat, ap.. called T/ir A'tiif, ferried us down to Ainsworth| a little town at the confluence of the Snake and the Columbia, — rivers as mighty in \o\{ ume here as the Mississippi and Missouri where they join, and as strikmgly difterent ir the character of their waters. At Ainswortl the journey described in this article endedj and the homeward trip in a Pullman car began. Eugent V. Smal/ey.